A terrorist attack in DC sets the stage for Booth and Brennan's most dangerous investigation yet. When a bomb goes off at the Department of Justice, Agent Booth, and by extension Bones and the Squint Squad, become part of the FBI team investigating who was responsible and why. What none of them know is that the attack had a far more sinister purpose, and that their knack for finding the truth could result in deadly consequences to them all…. Takes place sometime between the events of the Season 5 premiere and the TBD events of the rest of the season.
************************************************************************************
Author's Note: This is only my second fanfic, so please be kind....but REVIEW!!! I found throughout the process of my first fanfic that the more reviews I received, the better the story became. Your enjoyment of the story really does feed into the energy creating it, so FEED ME!!!
Oh yeah...."insert standard 'I don't own any of these people, places, or things' disclaimer here. Good thing, too, since they are all FICTIONAL!! :)
Happy Reading!
Max
*************************************************************************************
The Lie in the Truth
Chapter 1
"Bones, would you just wait a minute?" Special Agent Seeley Booth called after his partner, who was resolutely marching just a few quick strides ahead of him. "We need to finish talking about this!"
His partner, world renowned forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance Brennan, didn't slow her rapid pace. "There is nothing to talk about, and further dialogue on the subject would be pointless," she offered, not turning around.
"Pointless?" he flared. "Talking about things that are important to me that I need to get figured out is suddenly pointless?"
Deflection, Dr. Brennan. Deflection and avoidance. She could hear Sweets' voice in her head, as if he were performing a running commentary on the predicament she now found herself in. True, when Booth had initially broached the subject she had panicked, but the open, earnest look in his warm brown eyes had quickly managed to crumble the resolve she had stockpiled for such an occasion. She had melted into those eyes and had prepared to open her mind, and heart, to Booth's discussion. Cam's subsequent call into her office had come at the worst possible time, quickly spoiling the moment and freezing that resolve back into place before she even had a chance to rationalize it.
"Cam said she needed me on the platform immediately, remember?" she shot back over her shoulder, simultaneously pulling her shoulder-length auburn hair up in a messy ponytail.
Watching her quickly stride away from him bolstered his frustration. He had stressed and fretted for weeks on how to best broach the subject, deciding again and again that it just wasn't the right time. Once he finally made the leap to proceed, he had been petrified at how she would respond. For just a brief moment he thought her walls had begun to come down; that they might actually have a fruitful conversation on the topic. She had turned to face him, with eyes that remained guarded but introspective and shining with emotion, and she had just opened her mouth to respond when Cam had called.
The moment had now effectively slipped through his fingers, disappointment now giving way to anger at another missed opportunity simply because of bad timing. He had seen the change in her eyes when the phone rang, as if they were shutters fending off an approaching storm. In only a millisecond they were slammed shut and the moment was gone. Months of internal battles and frustration now made their way to the surface, given air to breathe by her apparent relief at the respite.
He tapped the side of his temple with his index finger in an exaggerated show of sarcasm. "How could I have forgotten that? Oh, wait a minute," he suddenly stopped his pursuit of her in mid-stride. "That's right. I was in your office ten seconds ago when you got the call. How on earth could I have forgotten that already?"
She suddenly stopped in her tracks and turned to face him, her brow furrowed in an unreadable mixture of apprehension and worry. "Booth! Are you having complications involving short-term memory loss?" her words came fast, with a tinge of anxiousness. "Because if you are I really think..."
"Bones," he started to speak, slightly mollified at her obvious concern for him, but she was still preoccupied with her misunderstood assessment of his sarcastic response.
"...you should go back and see the doctor. With a procedure like yours..."
"Bones!" he tried again, raising his palms to face her, trying unsuccessfully to stop the barrage of words.
"...there are really many variables that can result in different side effects, each having..."
"BONES!" he finally roared, taking a step towards her. His voice seemed to shake the room, echoing off the high ceilings and back into her ears like the cadence of a drum.
Her eyes blinked rapidly, desperately trying to assess the smoldering look in his gaze that mirrored the taut lines etched into his face. His frustration was puzzling to her; after all she had only been trying to help. If he really was beginning to have problems with memory loss again, the sooner it was assessed the better. She internally shuddered at the thought.
Never again did she want to look into his face and see the eyes of a stranger staring back at her, those normally warm brown twinkling pools of expression dull, faded and lifeless. Even now, today in fact, he was in the middle of one of his animated stories when he suddenly couldn't remember the name of his high school science teacher. A moment of confusion passed through him, one that she had learned to recognize the symptoms of as if she were preparing for the onset of a seizure. And, as always, at the same point in the process his eyes went dead again. For just a split second she felt a familiar ripple tearing through her, and once again she glimpsed into that shell of a man that had emerged from his coma just a few short months ago.
The episodes had become further and further apart as the months went by, until she had finally managed to convince herself that maybe...just maybe...he was really and truly back for good. That perhaps he had fully returned to her somehow wonderfully whole and unscathed yet again. This morning's episode as they had left the home of their witness had left her feeling violated; feeling that her blind hope during his recovery had been shallow and unjustified at best, and at worst stupidly optimistic that he would ever truly be the man he was before.
Booth was still standing there, hands clenched, waiting for a response from his partner. He watched as a myriad of emotions flickered across her face, and for a brief moment his never-ending fascination with her broke through the oppressive frustration. He had never been able to tell what she was thinking, could never even remotely come close in fact, though his gut could usually tell when she was troubled or when something was weighing on her very heavily. Gauging by the look in her eye his gut was telling him he wasn't going to like the way the scales were currently tipping.
She suddenly righted herself, the consummate professional Doctor finally regaining control. The entire room had fallen silent, any spectators speechless at the fiery dynamic unfolding before them, when Brennan finally lifted her chin and met Booth's burning gaze. His stomach dropped into his shoes when he recognized the look in her eye, the one his gut had indeed just forecasted.
"You do not have to shout at me, Agent Booth. I do not have a hearing impairment. I was just trying to be helpful," she stated flatly, then turned on her heel and resumed her initial trajectory towards the platform.
Booth knew that voice. It was the same cold, clinical, detached voice that his partner used when performing her original assessment of human remains, only now it was over-emphasized by the emotionless steely mask of her face. Even more surprising was the fact that both had been fixed on him. He pulled back slightly, watching her back until she had ascended the steps of the platform, then punched the air twice in frustration.
Cam's gaze met his then cautiously flitted to Brennan, as confused about what had just happened as he was. "Dr. Brennan?" she inquired cautiously.
"Yes, Dr. Saroyan," she responded, not meeting the other woman's gaze as she leaned over the remains on the platform.
Cam studied her face, noting Brennan's cold and guarded expression. "What just happened here?"
At that Brennan righted herself and looked Cam in the eye. "I'm not sure what you mean, Dr. Saroyan. You called me and intimated that you had further information on the tool that possibly made the scrape marks on the C1 and C2 vertebrae. As I was neither here on the platform when you ascertained this information, nor have you verbally disclosed it to me yet, how could I possibly know what has happened here?"
Cam knew Booth had overheard their brief exchange as he moved out of sight down the hall, and even now she could hear him venting his frustration on a heavy upright metal garbage can as he walked past. "AARGH!!" he fumed angrily, then kicked the can just for good measure, scaring one of the lab techs into a slight squeal in the process. The heavy metal lid was knocked off the can and spun like a top on the hard concrete floor, the resonating echo of its rotating wobble audible throughout the entire lab. The silence that followed was filled only by the sound of Booth's shoes clicking softly on the floor as he slowly returned to his previous position at the bottom of the platform stairs.
Brennan stared at him, knowing uncomfortably well she was the source of his frustration even if she didn't understand the reasons why. Responding to the passionate emotions of her partner was something she would never be fully comfortable with. Emotions were dangerous and unknown for her and better kept at arms length as they moved her completely out of her comfort zone. Still, she felt the need to try to solve whatever problem he was currently dealing with. Maybe then the nagging fear of his brain damage would cease to invade her thoughts.
"Booth," she began in a strong voice, prepared to lecture him about destruction of Jeffersonian property before he cut her off.
"Bones," he said in an oddly unfamiliar and unwelcome tone. "I'm going back to my office. When you have a minute to talk," he emphasized, "give me a call." His broad shoulders slouched slightly, most likely only noticed by her, as he turned and made his way out of the lab.
Brennan turned back to the remains, suddenly desperate to distract her racing mind and set it back on a familiar course. She ignored the looks Cam was shooting her way, running her finger over the scratch patterns on the bones for several long moments until she could not take the heat of the other woman's gaze any longer.
"Yes, Dr. Saroyan?" she stated flatly, not removing her gaze from the trail her finger was making across the remains of the cervical vertebrae.
"Nothing," Cam responded, a little too quickly and in the tone that begged Brennan to deny there was anything to discuss. Brennan effectively ignored her and worked for several long minutes, feeling Cam's gaze on her back. That was until her brain suddenly felt as though it skipped a rhythm; the same feeling she experienced every time she discovered an anomaly.
"Look at this," she stretched out a long finger, re-tracing a deep, yet thinly made gouge. "This looks like it could have been made by a thin piece of metal or wire that imbedded itself in the bone." Finally she lifted her head, searching the room for Dr. Hodgins who was making his way towards the platform.
"Let me guess," he began, swiping his card and meeting her gaze as he rounded the table. "You found ligature marks on the bone."
"Yes," Brennan pointed to the vertebrae she had just been studying, her tone implying she was impressed that he was somehow ahead of her in his analysis. "How did you know?"
Hodgins held up an FBI evidence bag for both women to see, as if he were performing a magic trick on stage, then with a flourish reached in with a gloved hand and pulled out a small, thin wire. "This, my fair ladies, is a small strand of wire found twenty feet away from the body. It was collected with other evidence from the surrounding area at the scene and sorted into the 'We Don't Think It's Important' box by the FBI jugheads."
Brennan began to follow Hodgins through his thought process. "Yes, I see," she exclaimed, quickly becoming more animated. "It could have been used as a type of garotte!"
He smiled, blue eyes twinkling. "Exactly. Most modern garottes are made of piano wire, which is usually one of four common alloys: aluminum, brass, stainless steel, or in this case, copper." He gently wrapped the two ends of the thin wire between his hands, as if it were dental floss, and fit the wire easily into the grooves in the bone for a perfect match.
Brennan smiled, again meeting Hodgins' gaze. "Looks like we may have found our murder weapon," she surmised.
He nodded in agreement and turned to Cam. "I'll try to take some samples from the bone to see if we can match it with the specific smelting process used to make this particular wire sample."
"I'd better call..." Brennan's voice trailed off, realizing she was suddenly uncomfortable with the thought of following the familiar pattern of notifying her partner when they had a breakthrough in an active case. Booth had instructed her to call only when she had a minute to talk. Well, I surely don't have a minute right now, she convinced herself.
"Dr. Brennan?" Cam questioned gently, outwardly witnessing the internal war the woman across the table was facing. "Should we call Booth and let him know?"
Brennan shook her head. "No," she stated quickly, "let's wait." At Cam's raised eyebrow she hurried to explain. "We'll simply wait until Dr. Hodgins can verify any traces of the copper in the grooves in the bone, and while he's doing that I'll attempt to get a better hypothesis of how this wire was used to kill the victim."
Cam was still looking at her oddly, with a mixture of sympathy and amusement on her face, and took a long moment before she finally spoke. "That's probably a good call. This way we can think through the process and be absolutely sure about things before we open up that discussion with Booth."
Brennan studied Cam for a moment, attempting to determine if she was really referring to the case, or making another one of her thinly veiled comments about the never-ending complications in her relationship with Booth. She quickly decided she had probably meant it as the latter and forced her professional tact to again regain its footing, but even to her own ears she sounded defensive when she responded. "It's purely a matter of scientific fact, Cam. Feelings have nothing to do with whether or not this piece of copper wire," she held it up in her hand, softly shaking it towards the body, "was actually the weapon responsible for making these grooves and most likely causing the death of this victim."
She pulled her cell phone out of her lab coat and hit speed dial #2, deciding to make a point to Cam that she could still be professional despite Booth's earlier outburst. "In fact, I will just call him to inform him of our initial analysis," she began, holding the phone to her ear, "and tell him our findings are not 100% conclusive yet."
The phone rang once, then twice, then three times before the recorded voicemail message answered. "This is Seeley Booth. Please leave a message and I will return it as soon as possible," followed by a loud beep.
Why wouldn't Booth have answered his phone? She wondered. He must have been angrier than I originally thought...
"Booth!" She surprised herself with the sound of her own voice as she recorded a message. "Hodgins is performing further tests that will hopefully prove conclusive, but we may have found the murder weapon used to kill our victim."
Her voice trailed off slightly and she turned her back to the bustle of the platform, lowering her tone further as she continued. "Please call me back when you get this message," she hesitated for a moment, wondering if she should address the earlier tension and then finally decided against it. "Bye," she said hastily, then snapped the phone shut.
Brennan suddenly swayed, grabbing onto the platform railing for support as the earth seemingly moved beneath her feet. Those lab workers with inferior balance were knocked to their knees as the shockwave rolled through the lab. It only lasted a moment, but as each person righted themselves all were suddenly fearful, wondering of the possible cause. Brilliant minds began racing through natural scenarios, such as earthquake, to the unthinkable thought suddenly brought to the forefront of their minds that none dared the strength to mention.
None, that is, until Angela raced out from her office, the remote control from the television still in hand and eyes shining with unshed tears of grief and loss.
"The Department of Justice building was just bombed. It's completely gone."